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Hello, My Dad who is 75 and diagnosed with PD for 4 years has had sleep apnea as long as I can remember. This past year, he stayed at the VA sleep clinic here in Little Rock, Arkansas on two separate occasions. He was "officially" diagnosed with sleep apnea as a result, but has declined to wear the positive air apparatus for sleeping. Although no physician has ever said this, it in my opinion, 40 to 50 years of being oxygen deprived hundreds of time during the night can't be good for one's brain, but nobody can or will address that it seems (probably because there is not enough info substantiated about apnea). When he had a MRI about three years ago, his was shot full of tiny white spots which no one would venture an opinion to their origin and although I come across the term Lewy bodies here and there in the PD literature I don't know what they are really. All that was said about the white spots was that all of us acquire a few each year as we age but my Dad had an enormous amount (this comment from his movement specialist). In 1990, my Dad was a participant in a nation wide sleep study during which he spent five days being hooked up to many sleep monitoring devices. However, that study's protocol was looking at the effects of two alcoholic drinks ingested right before sleep. After completing the five nights, there was never a mention of sleep apnea although I know they couldn't have missed it with all the monitoring equipment on him. Then again, they might have mentioned it to him at the time and he declined to tell me since I tend to take things too seriously (he thinks) as far as he is concerned. Hopefully, documenting and addressing his apnea twelve years ago wouldn't have had any positive effect on the course of his PD symptoms but no one will ever know. When I think otherwise, I get a little angry, even though I realize that that studies are concerned with one thing, and one thing only (at least this is what I tell myself).Trying not to think thoughts of what might have been . . . CGJann ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn